Ashe
juniper and mesquite has been documented through
research as being a type of brush which utilizes large
quantities of water through evapotranspiration. The
growth habit of the plants themselves lends to
intercepting large quantities of water that never become
available for herbaceous plant growth. Ashe juniper and
the mesquite shades other plants where they simply will
not grow or become severely
stressed.

In the mid 1800s, when European settlers
started farming and ranching in the Texas Hill Country
cedar, a native plant that thrives on our dry climate
and alkaline soils, was limited to scattered areas
primarily on the steep slopes. Cedar and mesquite
have become very successful invasive pests and
management is endless.

Improved grassland after
cedar and mesquite is removed

Natural forest fires and
Native Americans controlled and suppressed the
spread of cedar and mesquite for the purpose to draw the
buffalo herds to new grasses bolstered by the nutrient
rich ashes. Overgrazing due to heavy stocking of
cattle, goats, and sheep has produced a
change of the range plant population. Urban
settlement has also reduced the number of forest
fires as the ranchers and home owners can not risk the
insurance liability of a controlled burn
or forest fire. Consequently cedar and mesquite
has invaded our grazing pastures and
rangelands.

Water, more than any
other natural resource, will determine Texas' future in
the decades to come..it is our most precious natural
resource and our basic economic commodity. It is
distinct from other natural resources and has no
renewable source. There is only 2 % of the total water
supply on earth that is fresh water. The balance
of 98% is contained in the oceans. Half
of the 2 % of fresh water is tied up in
the frozen polar regions. To day half of the world
population is using up non-renewable water
resources.

While high-quality water
in aquifers such as the Ogallala which stretches from
Ontario, Canada to the Texas Panhandle and the Edwards
in Central Texas have provided generations of Texas
farmers, ranchers, and city-dwellers with abundant
supplies, the water levels in many of the state's
aquifers are gradually declining because of
over pumping for the Ag. industry and urban
demands. In Kansas, the center of the corn belt,
back in the 40's water could be reached at 75 feet,
to day wells now have to be drilled in excess of 625
feet. This drop in the water table is due to the heavy
irrigation over the past 60 years for the Ag. industry.
Our state's 50 percent reliance on surface
supplies will rise to almost 70 percent in less than 50
years. The problem is that available water supplies
will not increase to keep pace with expected population
increases. It has taken centuries to fill these aquifers
and less than 50 years to drain them to present day
levels, which has become most critical to our future
growth and needs.

Water use

Historically, the Ag.
Industry has been the leading consumer of water in
Texas, using up to 2/3 of our total
water supplies. The future trend in the
next 30 - 40 years, agricultural water use will
give way to urban use. and it is estimated that
the population of Texas will be double of the
population of 1990, reaching about 36 million.

Every Texan uses an
average of 200 gallons of water for domestic purposes
every day. A family of five uses about one acre-foot of
water every year. An acre-foot of water
is the amount of water needed to cover one acre of land
to a depth of one foot.) One acre is 43560 square
feet.

In Texas, the
availability of water varies dramatically from region to
region. Some areas of East Texas receive as much as 56
inches of rain fall per year, in the central Hill
Country area, the average is about 30 inches, while
areas in West Texas receive less than
nine.

Thirsty Water
Hogs - Prairie Parasites

Hundreds of thousands of
acres in Texas are covered with heavy water
users--brushy vegetation. It is estimated that
mesquite, cactus, and juniper, more commonly called
cedar, use about 10 million acre-feet of water every
year, about 2/3 of what Texans
consume.

Along with heavy brush
infestation, modern urban development and a
combination of years of poor soil conservation practices
(primarily overgrazing), the elimination of naturally
occurring fires, and devastating droughts in the 1930s,
1950s, and 1980s and the recent ten years of
1990's has forced once vast grasslands
to retreat. Opportunistic species like mesquite, cactus,
and juniper has spread into and eventually take over
some grasslands. Unfortunately, these invaders,
once Natural forest fires and Native Americans
controlled and suppressed the spread of cedar and
mesquite for the purpose to draw the buffalo herds to
new grasses bolstered by the nutrient rich ashes.
Overgrazing due to heavy stocking of cattle, goats, and
sheep and has produced a change of the range plant
population. Urban settlement has also
reduced the number of forest fires as the ranchers
and home owners can not risk the
insurance liability of a
controlled burn. Consequently cedar and
mesquite has invaded these established
grasslands. They do not retreat easily and are
difficult and costly to control.

Grasses over shoulder
high
Buffalo, The Lords of the prairies

Mesquite trees, for
example, have lateral root systems extending up to 50
feet from the tree, greatly increasing their ability to
absorb available moisture. A mesquite trees eight-
to 12-feet tall can consume 20 gallons of water per day;
ten such mesquites can use as much water in one day as
one Texan does. A large juniper can consume
40 gallons of water per day during the midsummer
with moderate soil
moisture.
Six junipers, then, use about as much as one Texan does
daily. Junipers have a deep root structure and a dense
mat of fibrous roots near the soil surface that allow
them to absorb moisture from the driest of soils, to the
detriment of grasses, creeks and
springs.Mesquite and cedar have no ability to
conserve water and will throw off what ever
amounts they absorb. Other trees conserve and limit
their water usage during the heat of the day,
controlling their water loss or output.

Not only do mesquite and
junipers consume vast amounts of water, they also
prevent rainfall from reaching the soil. In an area with
a 30-inch average annual rainfall, dense stands of
juniper allow less than a quarter of the rainfall to
reach the soil--the remaining three quarters remains in
the branches or in the litter layer under the juniper
until it finally evaporates. It is estimated that there
are 130 million mesquite trees and 100 million
junipers and the consume the equivalent of water
that the city of Houston would require
in one year.

An oak tree choked out by
invasive cedar

Mesquite and juniper,
called Ashe or blueberry juniper, allow only 20.3
percent, respectively, of rainfall to reach the soil's
root zone. By contrast short grasses--common rangeland
grasses in Texas--allow more than 82 - 90 percent
of rainfall to reach the soil.

Uncontrolled and
overgrowth of these invaders has had a detrimental
effect on the wild life and bird
populations. By crowding out more palatable
grasses, brush reduces the availability and palatability
of wildlife forage and diminishes biodiversity. A
mixture of Woodland trees such as the Texas oak,
live oak, elm, walnut, Texas ash, Mexican buckeye, wild
cherry, and hackberry, are primarily responsible
for attracting the insect populations upon which the
birds feed and provide shelter.

Brush
removal -- methods

Many private landowners,
especially ranchers, as a matter of good conservation,
routinely undertake their own brush-clearing efforts by
burning, "goating" (stocking juniper-infested land with
Angora or Spanish goats and allowing them to browse),
and chemical or mechanical means. Some studies have
shown that selective chemical application and burning,
when performed in tandem, have a lethal effecting
controlling juniper and
mesquite.

Just as farmers learned
to plow their fields in contoured rows instead of
straight lines following the hard lessons of the Dust
Bowl era, landowners generally clear brush in a
contoured or patchwork style. With many ranches these
days depending upon hunting revenues to support
livestock operations, land managers have an economic
interest in seeing native wildlife thrive. Brush
management say that a 30 percent coverage of brush is
optimum for wildlife.

When the land is disturbed through
mechanical means, reseeding with nutritious grasses as
soon as practicable provides an opportunity for the
quick reestablishment of grasslands. The most commonly
used mechanical methods involve shearing, plowing over
juniper and mesquite trees with bulldozers. The cleared
brush is often left in place to decompose, providing
some shelter for the newly planted grass seeds.
Wildlife, especially quail, and small animals, also find
both food and shelter in the cleared
brush.

Land managers quickly discovered that this type of
management created a healthier white tailed deer
population, a substantial increased in the bird
population and well as other wild animals.Cedar and mesquite reductions showed
measured increases of 45,000 to 55,000 gallons of
available water per acre per inch of rainfall.
Ranchers also noticed small creeks and springs came
back to life after years or being dry.

Water
rights - The law - Who gets or
owns the water?

Texas law states that all
surface water in a defined water course (creek, river,
or reservoir, for example) in Texas is owned by the
state and regulated by the Texas Natural Resource
Conservation Commission. The law also provides that all
underground water is for the surface landowner's use
without state interference. Existing surface water law
in Texas allows landowners to impound up to 200
acre-feet of water on their own land, but only for
domestic and livestock purposes.

But when water is neither
underground nor in a defined surface water
course--rainfall, for instance--it technically is not
yet state-owned water, and therefore available for the
landowner's use. The ownership or control of water when
it is intercepted just before it actually enters a water
course--for example, when water is pumped from a spring
or released by brush management techniques--is still an
undetermined area of the law.

More than 40 underground
water conservation districts have formed over the last
15 years, mostly on a county basis, to locally regulate
the use of underground water. Those that set limits on
water well production generally set it at 25,000 gallons
per day per well, or slightly more than 1,000 gallons
per hour. As with most local districts, compliance and
supervision is essentially voluntary.

A
Personal insight and Recommendations

Our country is one of the
riches countries in the world, we have demonstrated
our technical achievements from damning up rivers to
shooting for the stars. We
have built gas and oil pipe lines chris cross this
country for the sake of progress. In 1999
Texas crop losses due to drought exceeded 2 billion
dollars, and in 2001 it exceeded the 1 billion
dollar mark. The national figure for crop and flood
loss is near impossible to calculate. Federal and State
Governments pay out tremendous amounts of tax dollars
each year for nation wide crop failures due to drought
and uncountable amounts for disaster relief due to flood
damage.

When the oil and gas
industry needed a simple cost effective method for
distribution and transport, pipe lines scared
our landscapes from coast to coast and from border to
border. The technology is simple and the initial cost
and investment would be substantial. However the overall
cost saving would be immeasurable by greatly diminishing
wasted drought and flood related disaster relief
dollars.

A complex of pumping
stations and pipe lines to transport waters from flood
prone areas to drought stricken areas or wherever crops
are grown and water is need for crop production. The
surplus water that can not be used for immediate
irrigation can be pumped into or
sub-surface or ground reservoirs for future use.
This would be a costly venture but not as costly as
future crop failures, continued annual flood damage
costs and loss of life. This will not eliminate floods
or drought, but will reduce the financial losses of
property damage caused by floods, human lives and
reduce the extent of crop failures.

The solution is simple,
with the technologies and resources of this country,
floods disaster and crop failures could become
almost totally non existence. The initiative
is, that our governments, (state and
federal) insurance companies and private
corporations invest in our future to alleviate some
of the disaster of floods and crop
losses. A national water distribution system can pay for
itself using the source of free flood waters and
in-turn selling to crop raising areas or to fulfill
other water needs thought-out the country. This same
system may also be intricate part of our national
defense to transport safe water to needed areas of this
country.

Water is a valuable
resource and is quickly being depleted as we are using
water faster that nature can renew it. I
sincerely believe that within twenty five years our
fresh water supply will be in serious jeopardy, if
we do not take a long hard look at the future
and develop water use and conservation practices.
The new word is Blue
Gold and it will be a commodity
marketed like grains, orange juice or gold
bullion itself. Think about it, the day may come when
ownership of the rains will be established in this
country and not too far in the distance
future.